Tag Archives: creative play

Your Family Culture Can Be a Shining Star!

Your Family Culture can be imagined as a five-pointed star: the first four points ( the arms and legs of the star ) make a foundation for Discipline, the “head” of the star.  Think about it like this:

Point One:  Family Rhythm ~~   Create daily and weekly rhythms that are simple, slow and nourishing.  Slow down and let your whole family b-r-e-a-t-h-e!  Set your goal to  celebrate yearly festivals in a conscious, non-rushed or media-influenced way.

Point Two: Family Work and Family Play ~~ Model for your child work-sharing:  show them the “how-tos”  in accomplishing the work-load a family requires.  Remember:  slowly over the years,  hand more and more responsibility to them, as they develop more capacity.   But don’t forget that families need to Play!  Think of weekly play-together days and yearly get-aways for play!

Point Three: Children’s Art and Stories ~~ Give your child plenty of time and space for artistic exploration.  No, you don’t need to enroll her in art classes, just make simple open-ended art materials available for her self expression: crayons ( buy 100% organic beeswax Filana crayons! ) paper, watercolor paint, modeling material, scissors, tissue paper, glue; you get the idea?   And remember good stories are nourishment for the imagination, just like good food nourishes the body!

Point Four:  Child’s Play ~~ Be sure your indoor play-space is full of imaginative possibilities.  Choose toys and play materials that are open-ended.  If the toy “plays itself” or talks to your child, it is not open-ended enough.  Think of old-fashioned toys:  wooden blocks, simple soft dolls, child sized kitchen toys, dress-ups, wooden wagons and plenty of empty baskets.  Empty boxes, as we all know, are the very best!  Be sure your outdoor space has plenty of exploratory possibilities!

Point Five: Discipline ~~  When all of the above are well taken care of, many discipline problems disappear.  What to do when all is in-order and discipline is still needed? The watchwords here are Firm and Kind!  Use simple non-emotional statements.  Breathe slowly, settle into your heart-space, speak slowly.  Allow yourself to “slip inside your child’s skin”, to understand the situation from their point of view.  With this insight, firmly and kindly insist.  You can do this, and you will love it!

I will be at The River Valley Waldorf School in Upper Black Eddy, Pennsylvania this Friday night talking about Family Culture.  Join us there!    www.rivervalleyschool.org  610-982-5606

 

SO-Postcard-Front-Feb-2015

Freedom Tethered by Relationship


One of The Rose Garden parents sent me this photo yesterday.  The exquisite beauty of the young child’s connection to nature is so evident:  these brothers are free and at-large in the woods….living a life larger than the confines of their small bodies.  They are as large as their own imaginations, at home in the forest.  I am reminded of something I wrote years ago, as I prepared to write Heaven on Earth:

 

“I have found in my many years of teaching young children, and in my years as a mother of young boys, that most children are happiest at play outdoors. Young children are close to the realm of nature because they are still very natural beings. Because their consciousness is not yet separated from the environment, because they still live in the consciousness of oneness, of unity, they belong still to the natural world. In time they will belong to themselves, as the process of individuation becomes complete. But for about the first seven years, they are still at one with the world they inhabit. The process of separating from the parents and from the environment buds only around age seven. Before that, the child is moved along by life, something like the way a tree’s leaves dance in the breeze. The young child responds to the environment in a very unself-conscious way, a very natural way, and the open, complex, and diverse environment of the outdoors gives him that opportunity. If, in his excitement at a butterfly, he needs to dance and pirouette dizzyingly around the garden, no one has to say, “Be careful of the table.” If he needs to shout for glee or weep for sorrow, he is free.”

 

Through play in the natural world, we give our child the gift of freedom, tethered by and rooted in a deep visceral relationship.   Is that not the fundamental balance humanity strives for?   Such joy!

 

Bridge between School and Home

Hello, friends!  It is September and school has begun again.  The children are full of joy to be back into the simple warm rhythms; enfolded by this rhythmic flow, they grow more fully into themselves.  Here is what one parent wrote me about the bridge her child has built between home and school:

“The school day doesn’t just stop when the day is over. Greer plays school whenever she is at home as well. At home she gets the chance to be the teacher. She sets up our living room like the living room at The Rose Garden. Moving the coffee table and couches so that the space is just right. She brings in her own chair along with a cup of tea and some crackers. She sets her babies up in a semi circle around her so everyone can see and then she begins to “read” her story always starting with the chime of the bell which at our house is the clinging of silverware. She then sips on her tea as she tells her story with a big (all words) book in her lap.

When the time for resting comes up she prepares by laying all the colored silkies around the room and placing each baby it the appropriate place. She covers them says sweet words to them and gives each a gentle rocking motion to help the fall asleep. Once everyone is satisfied she goes to her chair and has a sip of tea.

Watching this take place in my own living room gives me a sense of satisfaction and pure joy. What my husband and I are giving our youngest of three is a treasure that is molding her into the gentle and kind human-being that we had hoped for when we decided to become parents.

Thank you to Sharifa and  Rebecca for keeping us grounded in what really matters in life. The innocence and love our children bring us everyday.”  Shannon

And thank you, Shannon, for sharing this with us! These rhythms create the foundation for a lifetime.  During the summer, I had the pleasure of talking, on separate occasions, with two of my former students who are now college students.  Each young woman told me how deeply her early years had formed and shaped her.  The years spent in this forest busily building “homes” for insects & feeding the birds as well as singing, painting, playing  and listening intently to stories had given them a deep love for the world, and also a beginning direction in their future work.  One young woman is studying environmental law and she said she paints for pleasure, while the other is a poet as well as environmental activist.

The environment of our home gives shape to the young soul; let us be joyful for this gift, as we go about  our “daily round!”

The Rich Abundance of Simplicity

It had rained in the night, and the playground was wet yesterday morning.  I had kept bags of raked leaves from the fall, for this exact sort of moment.  I emptied a bag, so the children and I could rake a path of leaves from the gate to the door.  When I emptied  the other bags of sweet and fragrant leaves to be spread into their play-space, the children greeted this addition like I had given them mounds of gold!  They rushed for the rakes; they worked and played, laughing and jumping, raking and tumbling until they dropped, exhausted and giggly in Rebecca’s and my arms! 

Indoors today, a royal gathering was held.  Kings and Queens gathered to plan the affairs of state, and to share a banquet feast.

When we adults can give ourselves so fully to the joy of the moment, we will have become rich in our simplicity!

Family Culture

Our family is the container, the safe space in which young souls are cultivated. They grow in this atmosphere, with the mixture of necessary elements. When they know themselves well enough, they step outside the family, into the strong wind of their own life.
I believe there is one central task that each parent is given with the birth of his or her child. This is to carry for the child, until he can carry for himself, the fundamental human question, “Who am I?” When we look into our beloved child’s face, we can look down the long corridor of his life, inquiring who the man will be. As parents, we certainly will see particular characteristics, tendencies, in our child. We will offer much love and effort in guiding these inclinations in the right direction. But this work must be done in secret, veiled from the child. Our goal is to have the young adult step into this “self-making” with freedom. We foster freedom by holding open the question, “Who are you?” The container of the family is the vessel in which we carry this question

Circle Time is Great Fun and Great Brain Development, too.

I spent a good amount of time over the Winter Break studying the latest brain-development research. All of the research I worked with supports The Rose Garden’s basic philosophy: plenty of outdoor time, a wide palette of sensory experience, the individual exploration of creative play and lots of artistic activities and stories. Perhaps most important, though, is the research that correlates the necessity of both fine and large motor movement with an intimate connection to sound and music.

I have an idea that I hope to pursue: I’d love to write a piece that describes detail by detail a typical day at The Rose Garden. Woven through this I will describe the research that explains the WHY of all the large and small experiences offered the children. This will take a while to accomplish! Meantime, here is a short video of today’s Circle Time and snack clean up for you to enjoy….joyful movement amidst a tapestry of language and song. Just what the Doctor orders!

Ooops…let me work on posting the video!